After the extremely successful Berlin Congress we are trying hard to offer to our Members and Candidates, as well as to all those interested in psychoanalysis, wider access to the main plenaries, panels and individual papers presented during the event. The forthcoming News Magazine will feature reports from the Congress, but I wanted to write to you as soon as possible after the event to share some thoughts and to remind you that we have already put up on the IPA website a number of papers and other sessions.

Please click here to go to the list of Individual Papers. Or click here to listen to selected panels and papers which were audio-recorded.

This is part of our ongoing process of transparency, through which we also make the minutes of the Board meetings available to the membership, and it is also part of our commitment to the principle of stimulating open and free debate on the main issues that challenge psychoanalysis as a discipline. Such issues include not only theoretical themes but also clinical ones, research, training, outreach activities and our institutions in their several levels. My feeling in Berlin and afterwards was that we were able to cover all these areas, while particular attention was given to reflecting on the traumatic effects of the Holocaust and other similar expressions of totalitarianism.

The task we have as psychoanalysts is a difficult one: we must deal with different, ambiguous and often mutually contradictory realities. I am referring to the internal reality of our patients, to our own inner world, to the analytic field we build jointly with each patient, to our institutional life and to the world we live in. Challenging as it seems to be, this is a fascinating exercise and once someone embarks on analytic training, only death or severe illness will prevent him or her from participating in this community. It is like a tribe with its traditions, rituals and celebrations and one of the most important of these is our international Congress.

Each of these moments leaves memories of people, feelings, ideas, meetings, anxieties and discoveries, perhaps even also some insights. When the heat of the moment has passed, the time has come to reflect on the emotional experience and try to move forward with new ideas, proposals and plans, in order to keep psychoanalysis in what I consider to be its main trend: a work-in-progress. To all those who attended the Berlin Congress, and to all those who did not, we offer in this and other spaces the opportunity to participate in this ongoing and joint work-in-progress.